Seamless Modelling for Environmental Studies: Enviro-HIRLAM Recent Research and Development

The Enviro-HIRLAM (Environment - HIgh Resolution Limited Area Model) is seamless/ online integrated numerical weather prediction and atmospheric chemical transport modelling system capable to simulate simultaneously meteorology – atmospheric composition on regional to subregional – urban scales.

The main areas of the model research and development include: downscaling/  nesting  for  high  resolutions;  improved  resolving  boundary  and  surface  layers  structures; urbanization and sub-layer processes; improvement of advection schemes; integration of natural and anthropogenic emission inventories; implementation of gas-phase chemistry mechanisms, aerosol dynamics and microphysics, aerosol feedback and interactions mechanisms.

The Enviro-components includes: gas-phase chemistry; aerosol microphysics with nucleation, coagulation, condensation of sulfate, mineral dust, sea-salt, black and organic carbon together  with  aerosols’ dry and wet deposition, sedimentation processes;  parameterisations of urban sublayer with modifications of the interaction soil–biosphere–atmosphere scheme; sulfur cycle mechanism with dimethyl sulfide, sulfur dioxide and sulfate; radiation scheme improved to  account  explicitly  for  aerosol  radiation interactions  for   aerosol  subtypes; aerosol  activation  implemented in condensation-convection scheme with nucleation dependent on aerosol properties and ice-phase processes; locally  mass-conserving  semi-Lagrangian  numerical  advection  scheme; natural and anthropogenic emission inventories.

The Enviro-HIRLAM utilises extraction and pre-processing of initial/ boundary meteorology-chemistry-aerosol conditions and observations for data assimilation (from ECMWF’s ERA-5 & CAMS), pre-processing of selected emission inventories for anthropogenic and natural emissions. The latest version has been run on CRAY-XC30/40 and Atos BullSequana HPCs machines, and it has been developed through the research and HPC projects such as Enviro-HIRLAM at CSC and Enviro-PEEX & Enviro-PEEX(Plus) at ECMWF, as well as other research projects.

The research, development and science education of the modelling system and its applications will be demonstrated on examples, where the Enviro-HIRLAM is used as a research tool  for studies in domain of the Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX; https://www.atm.helsinki.fi/peex) programme. Examples of such include: aspects of regional-subregional-urban downscaling with focus on metropolitan areas of St.Petersburg and Moscow; influence of dust transport from artificial tailing dumps and Cu-Ni smelters of the Kola Peninsula on pollution of environment and health of population; aerosol feedbacks and interactions at regional scale in the Arctic-boreal domain; evaluation of atmosphere-land-sea surfaces interactions, and in particular, heat-moisture exchange/ regime between these surfaces and for better understanding and forecasting of local meteorology in the Arctic; analysis of urban meteorology and atmospheric pollution with integrated approach to high-resolution numerical modelling; and others. The modelling output provides meteorology-chemistry related input to assessment studies for population and environment as well as can be integrated into GIS environment for further risk/vulnerability/consequences/etc. estimation, and other studies.

The science education component for the model is also realised though short-term visits of young researchers, organization and carrying out research training weeks. The latest face-to-face trainings took place in Apr and Jun 2019 (Helsinki and Tyumen), and online in Nov-Dec 2021 (https://megapolis2021.ru).